CURBING CHOICE IN THE NAME OF CHOICE

Catalyst January/February Issue 2012

The anti-Catholic group, Catholics for Choice, recently placed an ad on the op-ed page of the New York Times. We immediately issued a response.

“Choice” has no normative value absent an object, but even then it may carry no moral weight. Choosing chocolate over vanilla is a choice without moral consequence. But choosing to abort one’s baby clearly has consequences, both for the woman and her child: for the woman, they are traumatic; for the baby, they are deadly.

No Catholic can support such a choice. Indeed, in this instance, the very name “Catholics for Choice” is an oxymoron.

Ironically, the Catholics for Choice advertisement focused exclusively on limiting the choices of Catholics: it asked President Obama to stand against the U.S. bishops by denying Catholic institutions the right to a religious exemption from healthcare services they cannot in good conscience countenance. The bishops have been on the frontlines of the religious freedom battle, yet Catholics for Choice wants to strip them of that right.

Here’s another irony: there really is no organization called Catholics for Choice. It has no members, and is in fact nothing more than a well-funded letterhead, sponsored by the establishment. Over the years, its biggest and most consistent donor has been the Ford Foundation.

One more irony: bigotry has always stained the Ford legacy. Henry Ford was a notorious anti-Semite, and today the Ford Foundation is the most generous donor of anti-Catholic causes. Indeed, the Ford Foundation is so busy working against Catholics that it funded the vile “ants-on-the-crucifix” video at the Brooklyn Museum of Art.